harrow
noun
an agricultural implement with spikelike teeth or upright disks, drawn chiefly over plowed land to level it, break up clods, root up weeds, etc.
harrow
1 American
[har-oh]
/ ˈhær oʊ /
noun
-
harrows
plural
verb (used with object)
-
to draw a harrow over (land).
-
to disturb keenly or painfully; distress the mind, feelings, etc., of.
verb (used without object)
harrow
2
American
[har-oh]
/ ˈhær oʊ /
verb (used with object)
Archaic.
-
to ravish; violate; despoil.
-
(of Christ) to descend into (hell) to free the righteous held captive.
Harrow
3
American
[har-oh]
/ ˈhær oʊ /
noun
-
a borough of Greater London, in SE England.
-
a boarding school for boys, founded in 1571 at Harrow-on-the-Hill, an urban district near London, England.
harrow
1
British
/ ˈhærəʊ /
noun
verb
-
(tr) to draw a harrow over (land)
-
(intr) (of soil) to become broken up through harrowing
-
(tr) to distress; vex
harrow
2
British
/ ˈhærəʊ /
verb
-
to plunder or ravish
-
(of Christ) to descend into (hell) to rescue righteous souls
Harrow
3
British
/ ˈhærəʊ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of harrow1
1250–1300; Middle English harwe; akin to Old Norse herfi harrow, Dutch hark rake, Greek krṓpion sickle
Origin of harrow2
before 1000; Middle English harwen, herwen, Old English hergian to harry
Explanation
To harrow is to cause worry and upset, the way a truly scary movie might harrow you, making it hard to sleep without turning on the light. Harrow is an uncommon verb that was originally used in a religious context. You're much more likely to hear the adjective harrowing used for things that are extremely distressing. But if your cat torments you nightly with her incessant meowing, you might try yelling, "Why do you harrow me?" In agriculture, harrow has a completely different meaning: it's a device that helps break up the soil. And if you harrow your land, you use such a device.
Vocabulary lists containing harrow
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Novel Study: Hamlet, Acts 1–2
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Call Us What We Carry
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One man rides a draft horse dragging a wooden harrow, weighted down by a boulder, to break up the soil.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Track maintenance will then harrow the track to release the compactness and return it to its regular consistency for racing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 27, 2021
Alcée rode his horse under the shelter of a side projection where the chickens had huddled and there were plows and a harrow piled up in the corner.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 21, 2021
In her diary entry for July 15, 1944, Anne Frank wrote words that would harrow and challenge generations not yet born: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 24, 2019
After the harrow, for the next two days came the Fitzgibbons themselves, all four of them with hoes and bags of seeds, planting lettuce, beans, spinach, potatoes, corn and mustard greens.
From "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien
After teaching herself to play during the coronavirus lockdown, she entered her first tournament at Harrow Chess Club in July 2021.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
The company said two of the housing developments still pumping out sewage were in the borough of Barnet, while two were in the borough of Harrow.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
He had fled on foot after the officers attempted to stop him near Harrow Road as he approached the carnival wearing a face covering at about 15:20 BST on Monday, the Metropolitan Police said.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
Zac, the second of the couple’s two boys, was schooled at Mill Hill—not Westminster or Harrow, though still one of the city’s better private schools.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow They wrapped the message in Doon’s shirt and put a rock inside it.
From "The City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau
Blacksmiths were actually the rocket scientists of their day, because they could make anything and fix anything - wagon wheels, plows and harrows.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 22, 2016
Which is another way of saying that the novel harrows the particular plot she has made her own all these years, of weakness — and why it repels.
From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2015
His poems rely heavily on visual impressions, as in this look at the scenery surrounding a state farm: "The horses, inflated casks/ of ribs trapped between shafts,/ snap at the rusted harrows/ with gnashing profiles."
From Time Magazine Archive
Most of the $294 million of Marshall Plan aid has been passed on to the farmer: 6,468 tractors, 3,242 disk plows, 6,176 tractor-drawn plows, 4,258 disk harrows.
From Time Magazine Archive
In some tellings it was harrows, but in others it was a rock.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
